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tolnas-vault · 5 months

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WIP to Watch Out For: Good Measures

Reviewed: May 2 2024

Fic Data

Rating: M

Status: Incomplete

Publish Date: 2024-03-18

Last Update: 2024-04-04

Chapters: 3

Word Count: 11,187

Main Ship(s): Barcus Wroot/Zanner Toobin

Side Ship(s): Barcus Wroot/Wulbren Bongle

Other Side Character(s): Wyll, Obelia Toobin

Summary:

At the end of it all, outside the Steel Watch foundry, when they stood before each other for the final time, the hardest part for Barcus was not the physical cleaving of himself from Wulbren, as he was already so used to being pushed away. It was not that Wulbren would not see reason, or even that when passion finally flared in his eyes as he looked at Barcus, it was clear, virulent hatred.

No, the hardest part of all was turning away, only to be left with the simple fact of his loneliness. Without Wulbren, who was Barcus, after all? What life was left for him to live?

He did not know.

***

Nearly a year out from the fall of the Absolute, Barcus Wroot finds he has the strength in him for one more go at love, after all.

Tags and rating to change.

Ao3 Stats (As of May 2 2024)

Barcus Wroot/Zanner Toobin works on Ao3: 1

Barcus Wroot works on Ao3: 37

Zanner Toobin works on Ao3: 7

Review (Mild Spoilers Only)

Warnings: Wulbren Bongle style Abuse, anxiety inducing procrastination.

Favorite Quote:

"Barcus gave Wyll a look of sheer exhaustion. “…They sincerely want to meet at half eight in the morning? I hope they plan to come bearing breakfast.”

He was only halfway serious, of course, but serious nonetheless. Even surface-dwelling deep gnomes — more used to the sun though they were — remained naturally averse to pre-noon activities, especially when deprived of much needed breakfast and tea."

Main POV: Barcus

Thoughts:

Barcus Wroot really shows off his Steampunk Bilbo Baggins side in this fic. To the pleasure of everyone but himself. His social anxiety in this fic is very real, and very relatable. There's a lot of secondhand stress to be had watching him get caught in the endless loop of anxiety and avoidance. He wants to do right by the Ironhands but he's struggling in his new leadership role.

Someone who's not struggling with their leadership role (or at least not obviously) Duke Wyll Ravengard! Who responds to Barcus' avoidance with delightfully cheery passive aggressiveness. I cannot emphasize how iconic he is in this fic. The patience with which he calls out Barcus' bad behavior while acting absolutely charming and accommodating the whole time. It was such a delight to read. And had me grinning from ear to ear even as Barcus shriveled in embarrassment. This is the Wyll and Barcus friendship I've been wanting.

As for this fic's primary ship. Zanner is so sweet in this fic. He's clearly very into Barcus from the get go. And poor Barcus is very overwhelmed by this fact. It's such a brilliant way to build up romantic and personal tension. It feels so bad when Barcus' anxiety and history with Wulbren gets in the way, but it also feels very understandable. Zanner is giving Barcus everything he ever wanted from Wulbren and after so many years of rejection, getting what he wants is absolutely terrifying for Barcus.

This fic so far was an absolute page turner, I couldn't put it down. The political and social tension in Barcus' life makes me want to keep reading. I cannot wait for the next chapter.

Who I'd recommend this fic to: Barcus Wroot fans, if you wanted more follow up on the Gondian-Ironhand relationship after Barcus took over, this is the fic for you.

How Unsatisfied Would I Be If This Never Updated Again?: I'll be honest here, this fic is on the hurt part of the hurt/comfort at the moment. The hurt is delicious, it's so true to the character and realistic. But it's currently left at the "awwww I'm disappointed in the character's actions, I want to see them do better" stage. It would be rough not knowing where this story goes, not gonna lie. But the set up so far is absolutely brilliant.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 barcus #barcus wroot #zanner toobin #bg3 zanner #rare pair #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #tolnas vault #bg3 fic recs #tolna reviews #fic rec #rare char #rare pairs fanfic #rare char fanfic

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riddlerosehearts · 4 months

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this time in my baldur's gate 3 playthrough, i finish wyll's personal quest and have a lot of thoughts about him! which mainly boil down to: larian did him very dirty, and i'm sad about it because i wanted to be able to love his story more. i try to be concious of the way that fandom as a whole is very biased against black characters, and as a lover of fairytales and disney movies i think the fact that wyll is just genuinely good and kind the whole time and is basically like if a disney prince became a warlock is cool! i think that's an awesome concept and larian could've done so much more with him, because i don't believe that characters need to be edgy and morally gray to be interesting and complex! but i feel like the writers themselves were biased against wyll because his story is so lacking in polish and so underwhelming adkjsfghf. i'll just have to choose to seek out fanworks that expand on the potential he had. anyway. rest of my thoughts are below the cut as usual.

the iron throne mission was very nervewracking lol but in a fun way!! it took me multiple tries to get my strategy figured out, and i ended up bringing several elemental summons to help do the fighting and misty step/dimension door scrolls to help everyone get around. thank god omeluum had a spell that could teleport gale out of there, because i was worried he wasn't going to make it and i'd have to try again when i was so close to finally saving all the prisoners. and i did save them all, though again it was a close call with some of them! i just wish i would've been also able to read the notes and such that i saw around.

got jumpscared by the waveservants coming to attack us for siding with redhammer, and then uhhh, redhammer died during the battle and now i feel bad :( i mean, i tried to keep him alive but he did not exactly make it easier by running directly toward the enemies and trying to fight them!

oh well. i'll have to try harder to keep him safe on another playthrough. i think it's a huge shame that you only get that sexy robe if you side with the waveservants though... i need to mod it into my game later. for science.

DAMN DOES ULDER REALLY HAVE TO BE SO MEAN TO WYLL... i mean, okay, i guess i can understand that he didn't have any idea what really happened between wyll and mizora, but i wish he could've had a bit more faith in his son instead of calling him a monster. ugh i just feel so bad for wyll, but i really am glad they finally got a chance to patch things up.

next, i went to the steel watch foundry and had gale take the lead in sneaking our way through the gates with magic... except we got caught by the steel watcher and wyll--who for some reason became the controlled character there even though i definitely had gale selected to cast fog cloud and knock?--lied to it and convinced it that it let us in. after that i got extremely annoyed by the combat lol. the fight on the main floor was really easy, but the one in the basement? i hope you didn't need to save all the gondians, because i tried so many times and ended up just giving up... in the end, only two of them (aside from zanner toobin) had the brain cells to stay up above instead of suicidally misty stepping into the face of every enemy, so those were the only two who survived. why does the AI keep being like this lmao??

there are a lot of hints about what the iron throne even is and how to get there scattered around the foundry, so i'm guessing the story does expect you to come here first! it's fun to explore this area and try to find all the lore tidbits they've scattered around. the steel watchers being controlled by tadpole-infected brains was a total surprise to me and so was being able to actually try and control them yourself. i tried to save the innocent people the watchers were attacking, but my poor low WIS tav just couldn't do it :( i also found... bernard's head?? for some reason, it says "extract", but when i click on that it doesn't do anything. that's really interesting, though--i wish we were able to learn more about lenore.

wulbren is literally such a jackass and does not deserve barcus. i want to yeet him into the ocean. i'm so proud of barcus for standing up for himself, taking over as lead of the ironhands, and telling wulbren to fuck off!!

OH YEAH I FINALLY REMEMBERED to look up a video of the glitched convo about gale's last name. being able to tell him you like gale dekarios better than gale of waterdeep, and the way he responds to that, is soooo rapunzel and eugene coded i'm 🥺🥺🥺 i want to see people make tangled AUs with gale and their tavs now.

i think elenion is reeeeeally skeptical of this whole "staking the future of baldur's gate on a legendary tale" thing and does not believe ansur actually exists, but i suppose he'll seen crazier shit by now so he'll just go with it!

the trials were fun to figure out, and i liked that wyll and gale both had comments on some of them!! wyll offers his help with the trial of justice and comments that he has little experience with lanceboard, and gale gets all excited when you walk up to the lanceboard trial ajksdghdfkjgss he's so cute. he also literally just tells you exactly what to do on that one. thank you gale i love you 💜💜

I GENUINELY WAS NOT WHAT HAPPENED WITH ANSUR THOUGH WHAT!!! i was expecting wyll to get to befriend a dragon and have him as a helper in the final battle but i've gotta admit that was an interesting twist and a fun battle. i'm unsurprised that the emperor is balduran, though, mostly because i've already seen people talk about it, but also they kind of... pretty much say it in the song of balduran?? or at least they heavily hint at it, by including the line "transformed, he fell their thrall". what i am surprised at is ansur x balduran toxic yaoi lmao whaaaat 😭 there's a letter on ansur's body that says "even if i'm not beside you, i will always have been your balduran"... can't believe i'm sad about them now.

augh, the choice of whether or not to encourage wyll to become the grand duke made me feel so torn tbh because like... first of all, i already knew about the blade of avernus ending, and that it's (from what i've heard at least) positioned as his good ending while becoming the duke is positioned as his bad ending akin to everyone else's ascensions, and i know karlach will die if wyll doesn't go to avernus with her. but my character doesn't know any of that! and i genuinely think joining his father to help rebuild the city rather than running around as a vigilante in the hells sounds like a good ending for wyll, as a way for him to do a lot of overall good for others and resolve his issues with his dad by working alongside him? i also think it's what elenion would tell him to do, if only the dialogue options for it weren't all like "think of the power you'll yield!" because they would not fucking say that unless they meant "the power you'll be able to yield to help the people of baldur's gate". man. idk. at least this time, unlike when it came to what to do with his pact, there's an option to trust wyll to make his own choice. so... i chose that. he chose on his own to become the blade of avernus. guess that's that, then.

i'm also just. really underwhelmed by wyll's personal quest in general though ugh 😭 listen i have had wyll in my party for the entire fucking game. his introduction was just so cool that i was instantly drawn to him and never let him leave my party and in my head i roleplayed him and elenion becoming best friends. i love him but his story is just really missing something... the conclusions to shadowheart and astarion's personal quests were so cathartic and made me really emotional but wyll's just Didn't. and i feel like they could've and should've done so much more with it, i mean, he's the son of the grand duke of baldur's gate!!! the game i am playing is called baldur's gate 3!!! i also think it's really weird that he's so torn up about ansur, but not about fucking balduran?? wyll, did you not notice that your hero is the evil mindflayer that lied to all of us and has been causing us trouble for the entire game?? hello?? it just felt like this entire final part of his quest was more about developing the emperor's character than about him. sigh.

i think the ansur stuff could've felt a bit more like it was about wyll if, like, he could ask to be the one to do the trials like how shadowheart can ask you to let her offer her blood at the gauntlet of shar and you get approval from letting her, because then the trials of ansur get to be about him proving his own worthiness as a hero and leader... and if maybe he was automatically selected for the conversation with ansur instead of letting your character do that, and if he had significantly more dialogue and reactivity to all of it.

anyway. going to end this post here, and then it's time to go fuck up gortash and head into the final battle and the epilogue!

#star plays bg3 #tumblr having a fucking character limit now makes me so mad #because i hit it on this post and i don't want to cut anything but i did want to add something:#the dialogue choices for encouraging wyll to become a duke both being like 'oh you could have so much POWER!!' makes it seem as if #they wanted there to be some sort of moral ambiguity where wyll starts becoming power hungry and where you'd fear that politics #would likely only corrupt him. but the story just. literally never does that?? wyll is never like that?? and SOMEONE has to run the city...#also i heard that a romanced grand duke wyll can adopt a daughter. so like. idk doesn't sound like a bad ending to me 😭#creme don't look

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